Dedicated warehousing capacity snapped up

With less than a month

to go before Ziegler

ZA moves into

new premises in

Spartan, the company has brought

another major customer on board

– specialising in safety and allied

products for the mining industry.

“They’ll have a dedicated area

in the warehouse and we’ll do the

import and distribution of the

product,” said chief operations officer,

Paul Lawrence.

Ziegler’s new facility will treble

current warehousing capacity and

dedicated space is already at a

premium, Lawrence said.

Dedicated space has been allocated

to several global customers in the

energy sector and the first shipments

are due to arrive in South Africa later

this month.

“We’ve often had warehouse

opportunities but have had to turn

them away because we haven’t had

the facilities. We can now offer an

all-encapsulating service with our

warehouse capability providing the

opportunity to grow our clearing and

forwarding business,” said Lawrence.

And while warehousing itself is

not always a particularly lucrative

sector, it’s the spinoffs that create

opportunity – feeding into Ziegler’s

wider 4PL strategy.

There’s no denying that 2015

has been a difficult year but the

company’s significant investment is a

vote of confidence for future growth,

says Lawrence.

However, one of the major

issues that has stunted growth

and that needs to be addressed, in

Lawrence’s view, is load shedding

– a sentiment shared by the rest of

the business world and one of the

factors contributing to South Africa’s

waning status as the gateway into the

continent.

“But Gauteng remains the

business hub of South Africa – and a

distribution centre for cargo moving

north to Africa,” he said.

“Infrastructure upgrades at ports

on the continent are challenging

Durban’s premier role and without

some urgent intervention we could

see shippers routing their cargo

through other African countries,

using the likes of Maputo port.”

But for the moment it’s full steam

ahead for Ziegler as its Gauteng

growth strategy takes shape.

INSERT & CAPTION

We can now offer an allencapsulating

service with

our warehouse capability

providing the opportunity

to grow our clearing and

forwarding business.

– Paul Lawrence

“